Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Ancestral Shrine, and behind this is a large and beautifully proportioned courtyard with a
river frontage.
Further up Rama
III
Road the Chong Nonsi canal runs beneath the road to empty into
the river, where there is a sluice gate and pumping station. On the corner where Naratiwat
Road was cut to link Rama
III
with Sathorn and Silom stands Wat Chong Nonsi, one of
Bangkok's oldest temples, dating from at least the latter half of the seventeenth century.
The grounds of the temple contain more than thirty
chedis
, and there is an ornate bell
tower with a balcony. Although the
wiharn
is relatively new the
ubosot
is original, display-
ing the characteristic boat shape of its time, and rather austere, being painted white and
with its roof aged into a light brown colour. Measuring only 20 metres (65.5 ft) long by
10 metres (32.8 ft) wide, this building could be overlooked as being simply an interesting
survival in an urban landscape, except that on its inner walls are some of Bangkok's most
remarkable murals, painted between 1657 and 1707, and famous for depicting the every-
day and sometimes bawdy lives of ordinary people within its scenes from the Jataka. This
is the earliest surviving temple mural in Bangkok, and the only Ayutthaya-era temple in
which both the murals and the architecture are of the same period, with no renovations.
Because of its historical purity and value the
ubosot
is usually kept locked and viewed only
on request.
Behind Wat Chong Nonsi, its canal-side setting lost when the road was laid, is a Ma-
hayana Buddhist temple that is regarded as being one of the finest examples of Chinese
temple architecture in Thailand. Wat Bhoman Khunaram is a fairly recent structure, built
in 1959 by a Chinese spiritual master who later became the temple's first abbot. The build-
ings and artworks in this five-acre compound are a mixture of Thai, Chinese and Tibetan
styles, and the enormous black and gold alms bowl that towers over the roof is a familiar
local landmark. King Bhumibol in 1970 came to perform the raising of a tiered umbrella
above the main building, and to commemorate the visit his initials have been placed above
the temple entrance. Wat Bhoman is the centre of the Chinese Order of Buddhist Monks
in Thailand.
Rama
III
Road, for most of its length, is double-decked. As the confined surroundings
made it impossible for the highway engineers to add slip-road ramps, the elevated section
subsides to ground level for major junctions. Viewed from sideways on, the road would
look like a massive switchback. Taxi drivers appreciate this. The way is usually unconges-
ted and the driver can really put on a turn of speed, sailing along the elevated sections,
lurching down the ramps that are corrugated with expansion and drainage joints, and
landing with a satisfyingly springy bounce on the flat pad of the ground deck before floor-
